Back to Black
by alwaysbeguyslikepotter
Summary: 4x04 Spoilers! The day after Blaine's confession, Kurt's POV. Kurt tries to push Blaine from his mind the day after their fight, but he sees him everywhere, in everything.
1. Back to Black

**Recently, every song I've listened to has morphed itself into a Klaine song. Seriously, today I almost started crying at a song during church. It was inevitable that when my friend started teaching me to play Back to Black on piano I would create a Klaine situation around it. And I did. And then I wrote it down. And it was strangely therapeutic. Anyway, I hope you like it. **

**And guys, if I owned Glee 'The Break-Up' would never have happened. **

* * *

**He left no time to regret**

**Kept his lips wet**

**With his same old safe bet**

Kurt Hummel walked solemnly into the office.

"Hi Kurt," Lisa, the secretary, said too cheerfully as he passed her desk. He flashed her a forced smile and retreated down the hall to his office/closet. He stopped as soon as he got to the door. Sitting on the desk was a vase of yellow and red roses. Kurt froze.

"_My mole in the casting office says there's only one person they're seriously considering for the role of Tony. And his initials are B.A." Kurt held out the flowers, red and yellow roses. He'd picked them out specifically. The yellow ones represented friendship and they red ones love._

"_Kurt, they're beautiful. What are they for?" Blaine asked. _

"_You killed your audition, Blaine. If anyone else got Tony, including me, the wrath on Sondheim would fall upon McKinley like a plaque of Sherwood Alley locusts." He paused while Blaine laughed. Kurt loved Blaine's laugh. "These are to celebrate," Kurt continued. "You." _

"_You always zig when I think you're about to zag and I- I just love that about you."_

Kurt stared at the flowers for a minute more, remembering that moment on the stairs, and then he took the card off the vase and sat down in his chair.

Next to an incredibly cheesy picture of a man in a dog house, it read: 'Kurt, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. XO XO XO, Blaine'

**Me and my head high  
And my tears dry  
Get on without my guy**

"Well," someone said, making Kurt look up from the note. It was Samuel, from design. "Someone's either seriously crushing on you or seriously trying to make up for something."

"The latter," Kurt replied, looking down at his desk.

"Ouch," Samuel said sympathetically. "He cute?"

"The cutest," Kurt stated sadly.

"Well that sucks, I'm sorry. You need to go binge shopping? Isabelle's summoning us to the conference room. I can cover for you," Samuel offered.

"I'm okay," Kurt lied. "I'll be okay." Eventually, Kurt added as an afterthought as he dropped Blaine's note in the trash and watched in float down and settle amongst the garbage. It blended right in.

**You went back to what you knew  
So far removed from all that we went through  
And I tread a troubled track  
My odds are stacked  
I'll go back to black  
**  
Kurt walked dejectedly to the conference room and took his usual spot on Isabelle's left side. Isabelle smiled at him happily.

"Kurt darling, we missed you last night," Isabelle said, referring to the invitation she had given him to come out to dinner. He'd canceled when Rachel invited him to Callbacks. And he'd canceled two times over when Blaine arrived.

"Sorry, an old friend was in town," Kurt said, staring at the table, not looking at her.

Isabelle smiled again and looked at the table. "Alright team, we have to start on winter. It's fast approaching and I want to get started on the designs right away."

An approving mutter was given by all and the discussion started.

"Thigh high boots," someone said.

"Cossack hats," another suggested.

"Fox tail ear muffs."

"None of those are really doing it for me," Isabelle said, cheerful as usual. "Kurt, do you have any ideas?" she asked him.

Kurt looked up from the table and saw everyone looking at him eagerly. "Black," he said simply, because that was how he felt inside: dark, dismal, empty, black.

"I love it!" Isabelle said enthusiastically. "Everyone," she announced. "We are going back to black!"

**We only said goodbye with words  
I died a hundred times  
You go back to her  
And I go back to...  
I go back to us**

"_You are the love of my life Kurt, and I am pissed off that I have to learn, for the next year, what being alone is going to be like," Blaine said sadly as they sat in the guidance counselor's office. _

_Kurt's heart broke a little. "But you're not going to be alone," he assured his boyfriend. "I'm going to Skype you every day and you're going to come visit me in New York every weekend as far as I'm concerned." He paused and took a breath. "But I promise, you aren't going to lose me." _

_ "I love you so much," Blaine had said. _

"_I love you, too."_

He'd promised Blaine that he wasn't going to lose him. But in the end it had been Blaine who'd broken the promise. Kurt couldn't even think about it. He didn't want to think about Blaine with someone else, kissing someone else, loving someone else.

Kurt's phone rang. He pressed ignore as soon as Blaine's caller ID appeared. It rang again. Anger welled up inside of Kurt. He grabbed the iPhone and threw it across the apartment. The screen shattered, and the phone stopped ringing.

Kurt leaned his head back against the apartment wall that he was sitting in front of. He looked at the celling and wondered how stable it was. What it would take to make it shatter and fall and resemble how he felt. He decided it was sturdy. And maybe it was the only thing that was.

He looked back down at the sketch in his lap. It was a black blazer that he was designing for work. It needed something, so he added a chain across the collar. He looked at his design, satisfied for a moment. He added three decorative buttons up the side and smiled. Then his smile faded. He'd seen this blazer before. He'd worn it before, when he sung Blackbird for Pavarotti. When Blaine had fallen in love with him.

Kurt tore the drawing out of his notebook and threw it. It landed next to his broken iPhone. He hated Blaine. He hated what he'd done. He hated his broken phone too, and that black blazer. And he hated himself. He hated feeling this way. He hated everything.

**I love you much  
It's not enough  
You love blow and I love puff  
And life is like a pipe  
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside  
**

_Blaine sat down next to him and took his hand. Kurt just stared at him, barely able to breathe. "Kurt, there is moment when you say to yourself, 'Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you forever."' Blaine paused and looked at him, then resumed. "Watching you do Blackbird this week…. that was the moment for me…. about you. You move me, Kurt, and this duet with you would just be an excuse to spend more time with you." And then he kissed him. And Kurt's heart stopped. _

Kurt walked through the streets on the way to the Apple store, shattered phone in one coat pocket and credit card in the other. He was glad his internship was paid or he'd never be able to afford a new phone or his apartment or anything really.

It was only seven, but already dark out. The sounds of music playing and people chatting echoed all around him. He passed a music shop with a Beatles record in the window. He stopped and looked at it. It was the White Album, the first album. It was hard to find; no wonder that the store had decided to prominently display it. He'd seen the record before. When he was little his mom had owned a copy. They used to listen to it on an old record player they'd found at a garage sale. Kurt knew for a fact that Blackbird was the eleventh song on the first side. It was his mother's favorite song on the album. His too.

**We only said goodbye with words  
I died a hundred times  
You go back to her  
And I go back to**

"You know," the lady at the Apple store said to him, "The iPhone 5 will be out in a few weeks. And if you don't want to wait for that you could upgrade to a 4S."

"No," Kurt said to her. "I just want the black one."

"Suit yourself," she said, going into the backroom of the store to get his phone.

"_I was with someone."_

Kurt stared at the shattered remnants of his old phone sitting in front of him. Maybe Blaine wouldn't have done it if he had just answered him phone that one night when Blaine had called during drinks with Isabelle. It would have been simple. He could have just excused himself for a minute and answered the phone. He could have listened to Blaine's voice and heard his laugh and talked to him and then walked back into the office a few moments later. He could have but he didn't. He should have, but he didn't.

"_It didn't mean anything."_

It was all his fault. Kurt had ignored Blaine's call, but worse than that, he had ignored Blaine. He was too caught up in himself that he hadn't made time for the most important thing in the world to him. He hated himself.

"Here you go," the Apple store lady said, bring out a case with his new phone. "If you give me a minute I can put everything from the old one back on this one."

"Thank you," Kurt said, handing her the old phone. She took it and set to work, focused on the screen.

"_I'm really sorry." _

A minute later she handed him the new phone. "You're all set," the woman said. "And all your missed calls and messages will pop up in a few minutes."

"Thank you," Kurt said again, then took the phone and left the store.

**Black, black, black, black, black, black, black,  
I go back to  
I go back to**

It was still dark outside, darker, if that was possible, but that could just be the shadows from the grey cloud that was metaphorically hanging over Kurt's head. He walked back on the other side of the road in order to avoid the record shop with the Beatle's record in the window. He didn't want to think about it right now. He didn't want to think about anything. He wanted to die.

His new phone buzzed in his pocket. Then it buzzed again. And again. He couldn't possibly have missed that many messages in the two hour span where his phone was off. When it finally stopped vibrating, he took it out of his pocket and unlocked the screen.

'13 missed calls' the phone read.

Kurt tapped the screen, hoping nothing was wrong. Though there had to be some kind of emergency if anyone had called him thirteen times. He scrolled through his missed calls. All thirteen of them were from Blaine.

**We only said good-bye with words  
I died a hundred times  
You go back to her  
And I go back to**

Kurt sat down on a bench on the sidewalk and called his voicemail.

"You have 11 unheard messages," the automaton controlling his voicemail said. "First unheard message:"

Kurt gulped. He didn't know if he was ready for this. He knew Blaine had been leaving messages just as frequently as Kurt had been ignoring his calls.

"Hi, it's me," Blaine's voice said. "I'm just making sure you're okay, we didn't really get a chance to talk when I left. Call me back." There was a beep signaling the end of the message.

"Next unheard message."

"Hi, Kurt, I- I sent flowers. I was wondering if you go them…."

"Hey, I um, just calling to check in…"

"Kurt, I know you're just ignoring the calls, but…"

"I feel really bad, horrible actually…"

"You really are never going to answer the phone…"

"I honestly have no idea why I'm still expecting you to pick up. I get it, I suck. If I were you I probably wouldn't answer either. But Kurt, I'm so so sorry. I'll stop calling for today. Maybe I'll try tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just wait for you to call me. When you're ready. I lov… 'Bye Kurt."

The machine beeped again. Kurt sat frozen on the bench with his phone pressed to his ear. Behind him, New York traffic inched along. In front of him, pedestrians walked briskly along, returning from work or going out for the night. But Kurt didn't notice any of it. All he was focused on was the sound of Blaine's voice. It was all that mattered.

"Next unheard message."

"Kurt I know I said I wasn't going to call you anymore, but I need you. I need you to answer the phone."

"Kurt, are we broken up? I don't even know. God, I'm so stupid. I'm such an idiot and I'm sorry."

"Kurt," Blaine's voice started. It was unsteady. "I don't know why I expect you to answer the phone, but god, I just. I need you."

"_I needed you and you weren't there." _

"Last unheard message."

Blaine was sobbing now. He could barely get through the message. "God! I messed up, I know I- I- I messed up. But I love you and I'm so sorry… I'm sorry… I love you… I'm sorry… I love you."

"End of messages. To end this call, press nine, to hear saved messages press 6, to…" Kurt couldn't hear the automaton. He couldn't hear the taxis honking their horns or the music coming from the clubs or the people talking in the background. All he could hear was Blaine's voice, shaking, breathy, telling him on repeat "I'm sorry, I love you."

"_I'm so sorry, Kurt, I really am." _

**We only said good-bye with words  
I died a hundred times****  
You go back to her  
And I go back to black**

Kurt brought the iPhone slowly down from his ear and started at the screen. It felt like an eternity before he made the decision. And then he pressed call.


	2. Wake Up Alone

**Thank you so much for all the positive feedback. I wasn't sure how the first story would be received and was really happy that you guys liked it. Due to popular request, I wrote another chapter. It's a Blaine POV and centerd around another Amy Winehouse song. I hope you like it. Sorry for any mistakes, I know there were a BUNCH in the last one. I never see them until it's too late. I'm not sure if I'll write another one after this…**

**And no, I do not own Glee. **

* * *

**It's OK in the day,**

**I'm staying busy**

**Tied up enough so I don't have to wonder**

**'Where is he?'**

Blaine Anderson was going to fail this math test. He tried to concentrate, but his mind was elsewhere. Kurt. He kept picturing his face from last night: hurt, stained with tears. And it was all Blaine's fault.

He ripped his mind away from Kurt and attempted to focus on the test. 'With the above substitution, the given integral is given by b f(g(x)) g'(x) dx = g(a)g(b) f(u) du = In what follows K is a constant of integration which is added in the final result. Evaluate the integral' The question may as well have been written in French.

French. Kurt spoke wonderful French. He wondered if Kurt had gotten the flowers. Did he remember that they were the same red and yellow roses that he had got Blaine to congratulate him on the role of Tony? Blaine wondered if Kurt had called him back. Blaine had already called five times. Kurt hadn't answered once.

The bell rang. Blaine sighed, stood up, handed in his half-finished test and walked out of the room. He hurried to his locker, spun the combination, and opened it quickly. He tried not to look at the pictures of him and Kurt on the inside of the locker door as he grabbed his bag. He wasn't sure if he should take the pictures down. He wasn't even sure if they were broken up.

Blaine slammed the door and leaned against the wall. He fished his phone out of his satchel. 'No new messages' the screen announced when he unlocked it. Blaine sighed and pressed the call button. Kurt didn't pick up. It wasn't a surprise.

"You really are never going to answer the phone," Blaine said into Kurt's voicemail. "But call me back, if you get a chance. When you can."

**Got so sick of crying, **

**So just lately**

**When I catch myself I do a one-eighty**

**I stay up, clean the house **

**At least I'm not drinking**

Blaine wasn't surprised when he walked into the choir room and saw Finn Hudson sitting on the bleachers. "Hey," Finn said, looking up at him. Was Finn mad at him too? Probably. It felt like the whole world was against him.

"Um," Blaine started, "By the time I got up, you were already gone. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye."

"Why'd you do that to him?" Finn asked after a pause.

The question hit Blaine like a ton of bricks. Why did he? Because he was alone and angry and stupid. Because he was a horrible person. Because- because- "I don't know," Blaine said. "I just… there's no excuse, he won't talk to me. I don't even know if we're broken up."

Finn just looked at him. Blaine wasn't sure if it was with disgust or sympathy.

"Finn, dude, what's up," Sam called, entering the choir room.

Finn got up to reminisce with his buddies and Blaine retreated to the back of the choir room.

**Run around just so I don't have to think about thinking****  
**

**That silent sense of content that everyone gets****  
**

**Just disappears as soon as the sun sets**

After Glee ended, Blaine really didn't want to go home. He didn't want to walk into his bedroom that was full of pictures of him and Kurt or sit on his bed without Kurt beside him. He wanted a time machine. He wanted to take everything he'd done back. He wanted to die.

Blaine got in his car and started to drive. He didn't know where he was going; he just had to go somewhere. He got onto Route 33 and sped off, southbound down the highway. He turned the radio on and it blasted Pink's Perfect. The fates were obviously aspiring for his misery. He turned off the radio and kept driving in silence.

"_So, we're gonna be alright?"_

"_Yes. We're gonna be alright. I told you I'm never saying goodbye to you. We'll figure out this whole long-distance relationship thing. I promise."_

Blaine took out his phone again and called Kurt. Again, he didn't answer. And Blaine wasn't sure that he could blame him. "I honestly have no idea why I'm still expecting you to pick up," Blaine said into the message box. "I get it, I suck. If I were you I probably wouldn't answer either. But Kurt, I'm so, so sorry. I'll stop calling for today. Maybe I'll try tomorrow. Or maybe I'll just wait for you to call me. When you're ready. I lov… 'Bye Kurt."

It hurt. It hurt to accept that Kurt was probably done with him. It hurt to be unable to even talk to him. It hurt to not be sure if he was even allowed to love him anymore.

**He's fierce in my dreams, **

**Sees in my guts, he fills me with dread,**

**So consumed, he swims in my eyes by the bed**

**Pour myself over him, room spinning****  
**

**And I wake up alone**

Eli was a friend of a friend, an ex-warbler who'd since graduated, but unlike some of us Eli had chosen to stick around Ohio. Eli was nothing special. He was good looking, but not especially attractive. He had an okay voice, but it was nothing compared to Kurt. No one was anywhere near as good as Kurt. At anything.

Blaine had no idea what had possessed him to go over to Eli's two nights ago. He'd never even met Eli in person. They'd just Facebook chatted a few times. But somewhere, deep in the darkest trenches of Blaine's mind, something had said to him, "Yeah, that'll show Kurt. Teach him to ignore you. Go, do it." And the rational part was so hurt and sad and alone that it didn't even try to stop him. So he did it, sort of. They didn't do much. They kissed a few times, and a bit more, but that was it.

"_This is cheating, Kurt!"_

"_Talk to me! Tell me that you're unhappy, but don't cheat on me." _

"I'm sorry, I can't do this," Blaine said, sitting up on Eli's bed.

"Come on babe."

"No, I have to go!"

Blaine went home that night feeling guilty as hell. Every part of him wanted to call Kurt and tell him everything. He felt so bad. Wasn't he the one who had gotten angry about the texting that one kid from them music store thing. He remembered how he felt when Kurt had done that to him. And now he'd turned around and done the same thing, only worse. Much, much worse. He was horrible.

He had a hard time falling asleep that night. And when he finally did, he slept restlessly and woke up alone.

**If I was my heart, I'd rather be restless****  
**

**Sick and I stop, the sleep catches up and I'm breathless****  
**

**There's this ache in my chest as my day is done now****  
**

**The dark covers me and I cannot run now****  
**

Blaine pulled into the Dalton Academy parking lot and stared at the building in front of him. He knew it so well. He missed it so much. He got out of the car and started walking. It was about six o'clock so all the boys were at dinner. It was quiet, almost eerie on the empty campus. The dark clouds circling above added to the effect. Blaine walked past the main building and through the yard.

When he got to the single dead tree, he stopped. There was bedazzled plaque underneath it. 'Pavarotti: 2010- 2011' Blaine just stared at it. He was there when Kurt had made that plaque. Its creation had been interrupted by their first kiss.

"_What's that?"_

"_I'm decorating Pavarotti's casket."_

"_Well finish up, I've have the perfect song for our number and we should practice." _

How could he have messed up what they had? They were perfect for each other and Blaine had destroyed it all with one stupid mistake, one fatal fault. Blaine took out his phone. He needed to talk to Kurt. He needed to tell him how sorry and horrible he was. He just needed him.

The call rang twice before Kurt ignored it. "Kurt I know I said I wasn't going to call you anymore, but I need you. I need you to answer the phone."

Blaine tried again. It went straight to voicemail that time. "Kurt, are we broken up? I don't even know. God, I'm so stupid. I'm such an idiot and I'm sorry."

**My blood running cold, I stand before him****  
**

**It's all I can do to assure him****  
**

**When he comes to me, I drink for him tonight****  
**

**Drowning me we bathe under blue light****  
**

Blaine couldn't remember the last time he had sobbed. He could remember the last time he'd cried; it was yesterday. But that horrible feeling where you start crying and can't stop and your entire body is overcome by this awful feeling and you just can't get rid of it. That feeling? Blaine couldn't remember the last time he'd had it. And now standing in front of the grave of the bird that had started so much, he started to bawl. He sank to the ground beside the dead canary and sobbed. And it felt like nothing would be happy again.

It started to rain. Damn Ohio weather. It wasn't pouring, it was just a light drizzle, as if the rain was too scared to face him head on. It just wanted to patter around him, torturing him.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there in the rain sobbing under a dead tree that doubled as the burial ground for a yellow canary. It seemed like an eternity before he convinced himself to walk back to his car. When he was finally out of the rain, he collapsed in the front seat.

He called again. Voicemail. "Kurt," Blaine started, trying to keep his voice steady. "I don't know why I expect you to answer the phone, but god, I just. I need you."

Blaine realized that Kurt didn't care. Kurt had stopped caring about him as soon as he'd left. He was big shot New Yorker now and compared to him Blaine was nothing. Why should Kurt care about him? But Blaine cared about Kurt. He loved him. He missed him. He needed him. And he wasn't there.

"Last time", Blaine whispered to himself. He called Kurt.

"You have reached the voicemail box of six-one-four-three-two-nine-zero-zero-one-three. To leave a message, press one nine or just wait for the tone. To leave a numeric page, press 5 now. Beep," the robot controlling Kurt's mailbox said. Blaine wished Kurt had set up a real voicemail so he could hear his voice.

Blaine could barely talk through the tears that were falling down his face. "God! I messed up, I know I- I- I messed up. But I love you and I'm so sorry… I'm sorry… I love you… I'm sorry… I love you."

Blaine hung up the phone and threw it into the back of the car. But what if Kurt called? He crawled after the phone and curled up in the back seat, phone pressed against his chest.

**He's fierce in my dreams, **

**Sees in my guts, he fills me with dread,**

**So consumed, he swims in my eyes by the bed**

**Pour myself over him, room spinning****  
**

**And I wake up alone**

Blaine awoke to a faint buzzing noise. It took him a minute to remember where he was. Then it all came back to him. He must have fallen asleep. Blaine looked around the car, wondering how long he had been there. He felt something gently shaking in his hand. His phone was vibrating. He turned it over to see who was calling. It was probably his mother, wondering where the hell he was.

Kurt's picture was on the screen. Blaine's heart stopped. He pressed the answer button and held the phone to his ear.

"Kurt?"

**And I wake up alone****  
****And I wake up alone****  
****And I wake up alone**


End file.
